


‘my lover stands on golden sands/and watches the ships that go sailing’

by artyartie



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Tumblr, putting my college degree to good use, this is what i do instead of sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 02:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artyartie/pseuds/artyartie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Loki/Sif Thor modern-day  AU with less fratricide and patricide and more wetsuits, drinking, snarking and smooching.  In which <i>Asgard</i> is a ship, the Casket of Ancient Winters is pirate booty, and the Odinsons all have Ph.Ds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	‘my lover stands on golden sands/and watches the ships that go sailing’

**Author's Note:**

> Lemomina, on tumblr, asked for a moden-day Thor AU with Loki/Sif, and in the wee hours, this is what my brain made.

“How many times did I tell you to check the damn tanks?”

“I’m telling you Father, I did.  The gauge must have been faulty-“

“Then check the damn gauges too! I would have expected this out of the grad students, Thor, not you.”

Volstagg paused mid-bite into his donut, powdered sugar crumbling into his beard, as the voices from behind the closed door bled into the hospital hallway.  ”Hmph…how’re we being blamed for this?”

Loki rolled his eyes and continued silently beating his head against the wall, nursing his throbbing wrist.  ”You aren’t being blamed.  Merely used as a standard of incompetence.”

“Dr. Odinson has a point.  Your father, that is.”  Nearly an entire family in maritime archaeology and history made a need for constant clarifications between the three Drs. Odinson.  ”Thor’s reckless, but not careless.”  Hogun leaned against the wall, swirling a cup of coffee in lazy circles.  ”He wouldn’t risk our lives, or the dive.”

Loki’s laugh surprised even him with its bitterness.  ”My father is lucky he still has an eye, needless to say his life.  It could have been all of us in hospital, or worse, and you’re defending him?”

“If his own brother won’t, at least someone will.”  Sif’s words were cold and bracing as the sea as she strode into the hall.  ”Or was this exactly what you wanted, taking him out and getting him completely plastered last night.”

“I think it was my dear brother who got himself drunk.  That you cannot possibly put on me.” Loki suddenly wished he had taken the painkillers the nurse had offered, if only to quell the sudden throbbing in his head.

“And you didn’t encourage him to have another?”

Loki’s smile was so tight it made his temples ache even more.  ”I’m sorry I mistook you for a woman of at least moderate intelligence if you think Thor’s…excesses…somehow can’t happen without my diabolical plans and a few banana daquiries.”

“Even an idiot would notice how jealous you are, and if that’s what you had to do to make yourself look better to your dad, maybe that’s just what you would do.”

Fandral looked up from the magazine he’d used to distract his attentions.  ”Will the two of you just get a room already?”

Loki and Sif’s sputtering indignation was interrupted by the slam of the door and Thor’s thundering footsteps into the hall.  His blond hair fell in still sodden, salt-encrusted locks as he wiped at his eyes with trembling hands.

Loki tried to ignore the tendril of guilt in his stomach, thinking instead of his still-throbbing wrist, his father in the room just beyond the door, the panic of the team scrambling for the surface.  ”What is it?  Is Father all right?”

“He will be,” Thor said, his voice even lower than usual.  ”That is, he will be all right once I’m gone.  He’s sending me back to Santa Fe.”

“Why in the world would he send you to the office?  Jane and Darcy - well, they’ve not managed to cause an international incident yet.”  Emphasis on yet, given Jane’s assistant’s rather curious take on what constituted professionalism.  

“Because he doesn’t want me anywhere near the dive.”  Thor laid a hand hard on Loki’s shoulder, making him wince as the force drove him into the unyielding plastic of the hospital chair.  ”Congratulations, brother.  The  _Asgard_ is yours.”

***

Loki shut his MacBook Pro, sliding his wire-rimmed glasses down to rub at his eyes.  Hours of entering data into AutoCAD and the only thing he had to show for it was a raging headache.

The  _Asgard_ had broken apart, badly, on its decent to the ocean floor, either from the  _Jotunheim’_ s cannon or the swift currents that ran off St. Kitts.  Trying to find all the ship’s pieces, much less virtually restore them, was akin to trying to reassemble a puzzle someone had run through a shredder, and then burned for good measure.

It did not help Loki was far less confident in the water than his now banished brother.  Thor had taken to the sea as soon as he could walk; Loki had nearly drowned in a kiddie pool.  In the archives, however, Loki’s brain was swift, agile, and nimble as any fish, besides the fact he spoke and read fluent Danish, Dutch, French, and Spanish.

He would never admit it, but Sif had been right, that day in the hospital.  Loki was jealous of his perfect, golden-haired brother, the spitting image of his father, to whom glory, fame, and credit fell so easily, despite his shockingly cavalier attitude.  It was no secret Thor liked the drink - a strong liver seemed as much a requirement for maritime archaeology as their PADI certifications - but Loki had merely hoped his father would make him a co-leader on the dive, not entrust the entirety to his keeping.  Needless to say, Loki had only hoped for a small snafu, not for his brother’s carelessness to nearly get them all killed.

And now there was a week before the end of the season.  The weather and current were wreaking havoc with visibility and safety, money was even more perilous than usual, and the surveys were nowhere near done.  Father had hired another diver, but he turned out to be nothing but a glorified sport diver, and after he tried to tear into the stern, Loki had fired him in a fit of sputtering rage that would have done the senior Dr. Odinson proud.

“Quitting so soon?”  Loki could hear Sif’s smirk before he swiveled about in his chair and saw it.

“If you’d like me to enter as yet non-existent data into the model and completely invalidate your eventual dissertation, by all means, I would be happy to oblige.”  

“That isn’t what I meant.”  Sif helped herself to Loki’s dwindling bottle of madeira, not even bothering to offer him a glass.

“No, you merely meant to presume that I’m keen to sabotage my father’s work, savage my brother’s reputation, or to somehow ensure you’ll waste this season entirely on this ship and its so-called treasure.” 

“The Casket of Ancient Winters is real-“

“It was an annotation in a letter and it was a poor translation if you ask me.”

Sif slammed the bottle down so hard Loki flung his hand up to guard against the shard of glass he was certain were coming.  ”You have absolutely no idea what I am going through!  Not all of us have fathers who are legends in the field.  Not all of us can get by our name or what’s between our legs.”

“I thought it was you who just last week called me the, what was it…”  Loki pushed himself out of his chair, feeling the need to check on his precious wine.  ”Oh yes, dickless wonder.  I’m afraid you can’t have it both ways.”

“You kept us out of the water because of a pathetic storm that didn’t churn up a clam, much less the seabed.  That’s the definition of dickless.  And don’t pretend this field isn’t still a boy’s club.”

“For men without dicks, apparently,” Loki murmured, running his hands over the bottle, satisfied when his hands came back clean and dry.  ”If you’re going to abuse me, my judgement, and my alcohol supply, I’m going to have to insist that you drink somewhere else.”

Sif tossed back the small glass she’d poured herself.  ”If that’s how you’re going to be, then I’d be glad to.”

“Ah, you didn’t let me finish,” Loki said, and with a sly grin, he took Sif by the elbow.  ”I’m going to insist on you drinking somewhere else with me.”

***

As it turned out, Sif was rather a lovely conversationalist the more Loki drank.  One Dark and Stormy had made him reconsider his rash plan to pick Sif’s brains on how to finish the project in what little time they had.  Three drinks in, however, and a basketful of napkins sacrificed to archaeological site plans, and the two of them were feeling less desperate.  They were feeling confident, even.

Drunk, certainly.

“But I don’t get why you came back.”  Sif leaned forward, chin propped in her hand.  ”You panic if you see a dolphin-“

“It was a very shifty-looking dolphin.”  Loki lowered his voice conspiratorially.  ”They’re right bastards with very good PR.”

“Whatever.  You’re not a diver.  Not a very good one, anyway.”

“But admit it, I look amazing in the wetsuit.”  Loki curled his hand around his mouth to keep the bubbling giggle in at the blush in Sif’s sun-bronzed cheeks.  ”I knew I saw you ogling me.”

“I-” Sif shook her head, but her cheeks stayed a flushed pink.  ”That’s not the point.  Your brother said you all but had the position at Exeter, but you left to come back and help find the  _Asgard._ Why?”

Loki tried to snatch on to what was left of his sobriety.  ”It was all my father had talked about, since we were boys.  I had to come back, if only to see it with my own eyes.”  He leaned back in his chair, looking past Sif, to the crash of the waves upon the shore.  ”And I wanted to prove what I did with my books was just as useful as what he and Thor did underwater.”

“I think it’s useful.  It would be nice if you weren’t such an ass about how good you supposedly are.”  Loki’s gaze turned to Sif, framed against the ruddy light of the setting sun.  

“There’s nothing worse than false humility.  But you really think it’s useful?  I always thought you viewed me as rather…useless.”

“Overbearing and annoying most of the time, yes. But you’re the only one who even listens when I talk about the Casket.”

“It is a curious story, I admit.”  A fleeting reference in a letter of a Danish merchant on St. Kitts to a supposedly incredible casket, lost with the souls upon the ship bearing it to Europe.  Sif believed in its existence so vehemently, so passionately, that Loki often only belittled her if only to see the color rise in her cheeks and hear the fire in her voice as she argued for it, for her.

Dear Gods, he certainly had enough to drink, Loki thought, feeling himself warm at both the memories of Sif and the woman very much before him.  Dropping more than enough to cover their tab, he reached for her hand as he stood, wobbling only slightly.

“But if you ask me, I still think it was a cask, my dear, not a casket, though losing wine is perhaps worse than losing some fanciful treasure.”

***

If it was possible, Loki and Sif were only more drunk by the time they stumbled back to the bungalow.  Volstagg was snoring away in the room he and the ‘Grad Students Three’ shared, while Hogun and Fandral had taken to the couches, as they’d did since their first night.  Fandral cracked an eye open as the two fumbled into the room, winked sleepily, and resumed his slumber.

“We….have an early day so…plenty of water.  And aspirin.  And water.  Did I say water?” Loki felt a flush that had nothing to do with the warm, wet, floral-scented nighttime air.

“You did, Silvertongue,” Sif said, her hand coming to rest against his chest.  ”Three times.”

“Then it must be important,” he stammered, his hand closing over her fingers, feeling his heart flutter in a rhythm that had nothing to do with the prodigious amounts of alcohol he consumed.  

“Must be,” she murmured, and as she smiled Loki leaned in and kissed her, gentle if awkward, half expecting her to push him across the room.  But she pulled him closer, into the solid, firm weight of her body, her lines and curves, her hands cupping around his waist, cupping around the small of his back.

Sif was a very good kisser, Loki realized, even as the unwelcome realization that he was minutes from falling over dawned in that same moment.  Not wanting to do something so ignoble in her presence, and wondering if he would ever get to do this again when the both of them were sober, he pulled away, but not until after a kiss that left him so breathless silver stars danced in his vision.  

“Good night,” he murmured, hoping in the morning Sif would think him, if not a gentlemen, at least no worse than her rather low estimation of him.

Sif smiled as she stepped to the door to her private room, one of the few benefits of being the only women in a house full of boorish men.  ”It was a good night,” she said, and then was gone.

***

Sunlight danced in the clear teal water, sparkling even to the depths of the ocean floor, and the wreck scattered across the sandy expanses.  A week of breakneck, exhausting days had left them all on the verge of collapse, but it also mean the wreck was fully charted.

It also meant Loki and Sif had barely had a moment alone to talk about the kiss, much less decide if the experience was something worth falsifying in what little time they had left together.  He had a flight to Albuquerque with his father in two days; she had one to College Station, and it was probable, if not likely, their future contact would be quick hellos at conferences and symposia, nothing more.

The Grad Students Three had already headed to the surface, to radio in the good news to his father and to crack open a few beers, he was certain.  He and Sif were making a few last passes with the camera before heading up themselves.  Her auburn tresses waved in the current like fronds of kelp, and she seemed part mermaid, part siren, so akin to Thor and his father at how home she was in the sea.  He snapped a picture of her, and even with the regulator firmly in her mouth, he could see the bemused scowl on her features at the attention.

The flash, however, had caught something on the ocean floor, a glint in an an otherwise barren sandy waste they hadn’t mapped because it didn’t seem promising.  Loki looked at his gauge - just enough to make a quick survey and see if it was something, or simply a bit of glass or even 21st century litter.  He motioned to her to follow.

It was dark, worn, and almost escaped their notice until his hand brushed across the perfectly smooth surface, something made by human hands.  Something small, rectangular, crafted of what had onces been exquisite metal set with sapphires blue as the ocean depths.

The Casket of Ancient Winters.

A furious explosion of bubbles was Sif’s shout of jubilation, and she wrapped him in a curious but very welcome floating embrace.  Loki felt his chest tighten, nearly breathless at the bit of history beneath their hands.

And then his vision began to go dark, as he tried to draw in air the tank was no longer giving him.  He waved his hand across his throat, or hoped he did, and if he lived, he might even tell Thor he had been right about their equipment all along.

He felt his regulator slide from his mouth, and another take its place.  He drew in air, trying not to be greedy, and grey gave way to blue, and to Sif’s worried expression.  He squeezed her gloved hand, taking one more breath, passing the regulator back to her.

They rose slowly to the surface, hand in hand, sharing the precious air left in Sif’s tank. The Casket lay beneath them, still half-buried in the sand, and if it had waited hundreds of years beneath the waves, Loki imagined it could wait one more day so that its finders could live.

Loki had never been so thankful for sunlight and air as they broke the shimmering mirror above, and he carelessly tore the goggles from his eyes, wanting nothing between him and the world above.  He may have no longer technically needed Sif to breathe, but as they floated there, drawing lungful after lungful of air, neither let go of the other’s hand.

“Took you two long enough! Distracted by pretty little fish?”  Fandral was already half out of his suit, a Red Stripe in his hand.

“Something even better,” Sif answered, and as she leaned in, her lips pressed against his, her breath filling his lungs, her arms holding him up surer than the ocean, Loki liked to think she wasn’t speaking about the Casket at all.


End file.
